Wander Over Yonder "The New Toy" Review - AVClub

AVClub: If you wondered how the show could possibly follow-up “The Battle Royale,” with something more entertaining and endearing beyond “Wander goofily tries to facilitate the marriage between his two foes as Hater courts Dominator”–if you worried about that, like I have–then “The Matchmaker” and “The New Toy” should put that to rest. And while I doubt the show could continue going down this road–I mean, it could do it, but it’s not quite as freeballing as The Amazing World of Gumball (a comparison I’m going to get into more in the Stray Observations)–these two episodes suggest a spectacular way to handle what amounts to a lame-duck premise: by basically being meta as hell. Wander Over Yonder is a silly cartoon, and it’s always been okay throwing self-aware gags at itself (like when it re-did the intro with a more pleasant Hater back in “The Fremergency Fronfract,”). But these two might be the most directly self-aware episodes of the run so far. Wander loves to experiment with the format, and here they present two perfect examples of why.